TECHNOLOGY PROVIDERS CAN EMBRACE RFID FOR NEW CUSTOMER SOLUTIONS

As a technology-agnostic innovator, Intellareturn is ready to collaborate with partners in hardware, software and web services to provide solutions that focus on improving processes, promoting efficiency and generating revenue opportunities.

The Intellareturn automated product registration, warranty and customer interaction services offer partners a warranty management and returns platform that integrates RFID smart labels with optional barcoding techniques to enable radio-frequency identification technologies to co-exist and mature together or independently within third-party courier logistics networks.

With the automated Intellareturn warranty and return service applications, purchase date and customer information can be automatically provided to a manufacturer or distributor during product registration or at point-of-sale under a permission-based privacy policy. Technology consultants and partners — such as point-of-sale terminal and/or barcode/RFID scanner manufacturers, software companies and financial/credit card vendors — can both implement and benefit from our service platform. Intellareturn can even integrate our solutions into a manufacturer, direct retailer or online merchant's website as a convenient, end-to-end customer return center.

Alexander Resources: RFID Tags and M2M ApplicationsWhy Choose RFID and Intellareturn for Your Customer's Needs?
RFID allows your customers to track, monitor, report and manage processes more effectively and efficiently — anywhere and at any time. RFID generates significant value by enhancing visibility, improving customer return automation and supporting interaction.

Radio frequency identification readers will soon be integrated with TCP/IP stacks, as well as Ethernet, Power-over-Ethernet and 802.11 wireless LAN connections. This will be needed to help enterprises scale their RFID deployments to support multiple applications using a single courier shipper's infrastructure. Currently, Intellareturn systems are operated by connecting any RFID reader to a PC-based processing unit — with Internet connectivity, similar to barcode readers. In fact, existing barcode systems can be upgraded to read RFID tags as well. This is especially useful for courier drivers who use enhanced handheld scanners for electronically capturing label and tracking information.

Improving the Customer Return Experience with the EPCglobal Network
On average, 20 percent of what is sold generally makes its way back into the supply chain. Whether for repair, return or recall, these returns impact an organization's marketing, finance, customer service and repeat customer loyalty behaviors. Consider this:

  • U.S. companies spend $950 million dollars on logistics and 4.5% of those costs are related to returns. Therefore, $43 billion is spent on returns. Of the approximately $96 billion in online retail sales in 2003, over $20 billion were sent back to retailers. (Source: AMR Research)

  • Various industry analyses put the true cost of "handling" returns at 3-5% of sales.

  • According to Jupiter analyst David Schatsky, inbound packages cost two to three times more to handle than outbound.

Microsoft's Paul Flessner on the importance of RFIDWith Intellareturn applications, warranty services and post-sale support are transformed from inconvenient and complex processes into an important competitive advantage that simplifies and automates return authentication and shipping almost instantly. Intellareturn can work in real-time on the edge of many popular ERP, shipping and warranty claim processing systems.

Technology leaders are advising organizations in their pursuit for improving operations and new revenue opportunities. From large organizations like Microsoft, IBM, SAP, Oracle, Intel, Ingram Micro and VeriSign to specialty firms and consultants like Newgistics, Accenture and countless others, Intellareturn offers a truly technology-agnostic set of solutions that provide benefits to vendors and their customers.

Microsoft is now developing RFID software to run in a Windows environment as either a stand-alone product or an application for software vendors to embed in their own offerings and platforms, while IBM has created services to help companies establish privacy policies and developed a new RFID-enabled printer. Learn about these announcements, how they support the technology-agnostic premise of Intellareturn, what it means for the industry and many other significant RFID efforts on the Intellareturn blog.

It's not about the technology.
The Intellareturn RadioTag(sm) solutions help companies increase supply chain agility, respond to customer's warranty demands more quickly, drive down costs in the supply chain and improve profitability through distribution and courier shipping networks. Intellareturn focuses on addressing critical issues such as product warranty authentication by helping companies improve the links with their service fulfillment and trading partners — and directly with consumers.

Intellareturn RFID-centric applications are about taking initial capability and using it to help in re-engineering their businesses. It's not about the technology. To explore how your organization can start offering and integrating the Intellareturn solutions for reverse logistics and other RFID-centric processes, contact us today.